Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1886 — Shying Horses. [ARTICLE]

Shying Horses.

This trick or vice is generally the effect of nervous timidity, resulting from an excitable temperament. It is aggravated by improper handling. To punish a horse for shying introduces a new cause of fear. The horse will bo more alarmed and show more tokens of fear at the prospect of a whipping than at the imaginary object of danger if) the road. Hence one bad habit is confirmed by the introeduetion of another. It is impossible to whip terror out of a horse or pound courage into one. Kindness and gentle persuasion are the best weapons to correct the pernicious habit of shying. The less fear exhibited by the driver, and the less notice taken of the shying by using harsh means, the sooner it will be given up. A careful, experienced horseman can generally detect an object likely to cause a nervous horse to shy, and bv word or touch will encourage him to pass it unnoticed. When this fails, give him time to look at the object of fear; pat him and coax him up to it, then lake him past it two or three times, till he takes no notice of it. When defective sight is the cause of this bad habit it is incurable, and if the eyesight is failing, the horse for ordinary driving and riumg will be perfectly useless. A mare we knew had gone quietly in harness for two or three years suddenly took to jumping iiie white stone crossings of an ordinary macadamized street, as if they were water brooks. In three months she was stone blind.— Scientific American.